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Aquilegias are grown for their distinctive delicate nodding flowers that vary in shape and size between species. The alpinas have nodding blue flowers sometimes with white petal tips in late spring above finely divided bluish-green foliage. This alpine columbine is perfect for rich soils in sun or part shade and looks equally at home in a cottage-style scheme among grasses or dotted through a perennial border. It is quite short-lived but self-seeds freely though rarely to nuisance level.

• Garden care: Sow seeds in containers in a cold frame in spring. Deadhead to prolong flowering. Contact with the sap may cause skin irritation.